Actuating devices of this type are used, for example but by no means exclusively, for the manual selection of gear ratios or for gear preselection in gearshift transmissions of motor vehicles. With such actuating devices, which can consist in particular of an actuating or selector lever for an automatic transmission, positioned between the front seats of a motor vehicle, it is important to ensure that the actuating lever is mounted as free from play as possible so that the various functional positions of the actuating lever can be engaged by the operator or driver of the vehicle confidently and with trustworthy tactile feedback. Mounting of the actuating lever so as to be free of play is also important since in this way undesired rattling noise from the actuating lever is avoided.
The latter aspect plays an important part especially in the case of actuating devices for gearshift transmissions since gearshift or selector levers, compared with most other actuating devices in motor vehicles, have comparatively large dimensions and a comparatively high mass. For this reason, precisely in the case of actuating devices for manual and automatic transmissions the design should pay particular attention to consistent play-free guidance of the actuating lever. However, especially since the mountings for such actuating levers are increasingly made from plastic, it is often difficult and comparatively complicated and expensive to create a mounting which on the one hand is free from play and on the other hand remains easy to manipulate.
Actuating devices with actuating levers mounted free from play are known from the prior art. For example, DE 33 07 950 A1 shows an actuating device for a manual transmission of a motor vehicle, in which the shift lever is held by means of a ball stud in a corresponding ball socket in the base housing of the actuating device. In this actuating device known from the prior art the ball socket is made in two parts and comprises an additional elastic ring which presses the ball stud associated with the actuating lever into the ball socket in the base housing of the actuating device, so that any play existing between the joint ball and the ball socket is eliminated.
However, such actuating devices known from the prior art are complex and therefore tend to be expensive, because they comprise numerous components and because they need to be adjusted and assembled with care so as to eliminate any play.